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Organig LEDs hold large promise for efficient, thin and flexible lighting elements (as well as razor-thin TVs), but low-tech power sources continue to constrain more creative uses of the lights. After all, what good is a shirt of woven LEDs if you need to lug around 10 C batteries to power it? Thankfully, GE is teaming up with the makers of printable, paper-thin battery to create self-powered OLEDs with the battery integrated into the thin light element itself.
The partnership binds GE with Power Paper, an Israeli company who’s ink-based batteries could light OLEDs in nearly any setting. This collaboration will run for a year, and aims to both create the first generation of this technology, and get started on second generation applications.
As you know, the quest for ever-thinner batteries is being pursued by a number of research groups, including the Stanford researchers we covered last week who have devised a way to make batteries out of actual sheets of paper by coating it in nanotube ink.
GE already imagines lighting a tent without the use of a generator, but I’m thinking bigger. Anyone in the mood for a portable, self-powered flat-screen TV you can roll up like a poster?
